The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: charls on March 24, 2014, 02:58:28 pm
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Only started lambing for the first time ever yesterday. Have spent a day going from extreme happiness to extreme terror and everything in between! This morning we had a ewe successfully lamb, but unfortunately the second one was badly presented (head only), and had died by the time we caught her. We had to get a farmer friend to pull it out in the end. I feel awful about it. I know, life and death is what you get in farming. I'm wondering if I could have done something differently, or if it's just one of those things :(
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Sorry to hear that. There is nothing you can do about "incorrect presentations". More frequent observations may have given you time to identify and handle the situation but how many of us have the chance to watch our flocks 24x7 for three weeks?
This sort of thing happens to experienced shepherds too.
Hopefully the next one will be more straightforward...
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:bouquet: :hug: . What a traumatic start for you, I hope the rest goes smoothly. Xxx
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Hope it doesn't spoil the rest of your lambing sometimes these things happen :(
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Don't beat yourself up about it, these things happen. It may help for next year to go on a course that deals with helping difficult presentations, but even with lots of knowledge and experience, there are always new things to learn and times when you aren't sure if you've done the right thing. Try to enjoy the rest of your lambing!
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David Henderson's video on lambing is helpful, if you can get hold of a copy. Where there's livestock there's deadstock, is the saying. With experience you'll likely be able to spot when things aren't going smoothly or when the final stage of labour has taken too long. Maybe you could volunteer to help your friendly local farmer and pick up knowledge along the way?
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Thanks for the comments guys! We were up watching her at 6.30am and saw the first lamb being born, she was a very flighty ewe and ran around with it hanging out of her (it was an outside lambing). When she was licking it, we noticed just the head of the second lamb sticking out, so it must have come very quickly, we didn't even see the waterbag. We penned her straight away and had a feel but it was already dead. I suppose it's possible it was dead inside her, I'm not sure. The only thing I can think of that we could have done differently is lambed indoors, but even then I guess we couldn't have watched her every second. I'm indeed going to be helping out a farmer friend with his lambing this year, so I guess I'll get a lot more experience that way ;D
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That is the only issue with lambing outside is that some ewes are so flighty you can't get anywhere near them and they will run around with a lamb half out of them. I had a ewe some ewes ago that even went through a hedge and down in to the ditch the other side before we managed to catch her. She also had the lambs head out, but we were lucky and it was still alive and went on to be a smashing lamb. Now I take the easier route and lamb mine indoors, bringing them in about a week before their due date and then put them out after a couple of days if all well. Most of my ewes are very friendly and would let me approach now if they did lamb in the field, but I do still have just one mad ewe that would be off and running regardless!
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Awww that's really sad, big hugs, it's a really horrible time when you lose a little one. We too lamb very close now, the twins are housed with yard and the singles were locked onto the front yard at night time, and we d scoop em up and house them once bonded or if a ewe was showing signs of labour we d gently coax here from the yard into a shed. It s felt much safer, if a little more labour intensive, but been a good one, indoor suits us and our crazy flock lol,This year we prepped for a month before making pens, I've lost count of how many times I've carried hurdles and bed bases from one end of yard to tother lol, building enclosures, making runs to get crazy lambs onto the field. Loved every minute of it x